Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust (LCHS) has welcomed a new medical director to its Board.

Dr Yvonne Owen has been appointed substantively to the role, having previously undertaken its duties on an interim basis.

Yvonne, who will work part-time with LCHS, remains a practising GP in Tetford.

Yvonne said: “I am very excited to undertake this role. It is a great privilege to have spent my medical career to date in the county, working with a huge variety of people and organisations, and I am looking forward to continuing to shape and build on the success of clinical services across Lincolnshire with LCHS.”

Yvonne studied medicine at Nottingham University Medical School, qualifying in 1985. She completed the Lincoln vocational training scheme in 1989 and joined the GP practice at Tetford, gaining insight into health care needs across generations of patients.

Yvonne’s passion for urgent and emergency medicine resulted in her becoming a volunteer LIVES doctor and ultimately the charity’s clinical director.

Since 2006, Yvonne has been actively involved in clinical leadership and health service management. She has worked within LCHS for more than 10 years, as lead GP for the Out of Hours service and, since 2016, as medical lead for Urgent Care.

She was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s birthday honours list in 2015 for Services to Public Health.

Elaine Baylis, LCHS chair, said: “Yvonne is already a well known and well respected colleague here at LCHS and brings wealth of knowledge, expertise and leadership to our wider clinical workforce. We look forward to having Yvonne’s experience reflected in our Board discussions, where I am confident she will add real value.